Watching "Starsky and Hutch," you get the feeling that everyone involved is wishing they were doing something else. The film’s director, Todd Phillips, seems like he’d rather be making another R-rated comedy, much like he did with "Road Trip" and "Old School." Owen Wilson, as Ken Hutchinson, looks like he’d rather be sitting on a dusty bar stool in Austin, Texas, writing quirky stories with his old buddy Wes Anderson. And Ben Stiller as David Starsky, well, he just looks like he’s counting the days until his big payday for "Meet the Fockers."

"Sarsky and Hutch" is, of course, based on the old television show of the same name, though the two share almost no similarities. Stiller and Wilson aren’t really concerned with doing anything interesting with Starsky and Hutch for the sake of tribute, satire, or some combination of the two. Instead, they choose to play the same characters they always do - Stiller is the uptight everyman with a penchant for accidents that lead to remarkable embarrassment, while Wilson is the obnoxiously laid back slacker that women find irresistible. These characters have worked for both actors in movies that had at least some shred ambition toward creativity or comedy, but "Starsky and Hutch" has neither.

I suppose the movie tries to make us laugh, but the chuckles are no more inspired than when Aunt Ruth busts out old pictures of Uncle Stan standing next to his ‘74 Gremlin. The movie wants us to laugh simply because it takes place in the 70s, but all the characters are dressed like they stepped out of last month’s Gap catalogue. The movie wants us to laugh simply because they cast Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, but his comic timing is about as sharp as a rubber ball. Even the reliable Vince Vaughn can’t garner a laugh playing a fast-talking drug dealer.

The plot revolves around Starsky and Hutch investigating a murder that is somehow connected to an upcoming drug deal. The central problem with a movie like this is that nobody, particularly the audience, really cares about the crime story driving the plot. People want to see Stiller fall-down-go-boom and Wilson crack wise. But so many creative resources seem tied down with getting Starsky and Hutch to their various comic situations by way of crime story plot device that the writers seem too winded to give them anything truly funny to do once they get there. It is only when Will Ferrell pops in as a reluctant informant with a kinky fetish for dragons that we are treated to a short-lived laugh.

The story plods on from there, with Wilson and Stiller moving from one comic vignette to another, each one growing more stale as the running time lingers on. The action set pieces aren’t any better as each one seems scraped together from rusty clichés. By the time the movie ends with one of the most embarrassing cameos in recent history, the performers seem almost as relieved as the audience.

Vaughn, Stiller, Farrell, and the Wilson brothers seem to enjoy working with each other, and various combinations of this Frat Pack have made a handful of movies that contain some funny moments, but are ultimately uninspiring. The group has awesome gifts for quirky humor, but they are limiting themselves with the material they’re working with. Can you imagine a movie that could harness the comic performances of the Wilson brothers in "Bottle Rocket," Vince Vaughn in "Swingers," Ben Stiller in "Zero Effect," and Will Farrell in, well, just about everything? Someone call John Landis and get him to work with these guys. Now that is a movie I would like to see.